GoT Research Project

How Game of Thrones put TV drama to the sword by Sarah Hughes

The Game of Thrones Research Project was recently mentioned in an article written by Sarah Hughes in The Guardian.

Our Principal Investigator, Professor Martin Barker (from Aberystwyth University in the UK), was interviewed for the piece:

“My sense is that the creation of and marketing of Game of Thrones was part of a pretty conscious bid by HBO to shift the focus of big budget audio-visual productions away from cinema and into prestige TV,” says Martin Barker, emeritus professor at Aberystwyth University and coordinator of the Game of Thrones Research project, which examines what the series means to its fans. “That has had an influence on the medium – TV is becoming ‘streamed boxset’ and we’re still working through the implications of this.”

Our team of over 40 researchers are indeed still working through the implications of this, and we will be recruiting responses to our survey until September 1st 2017. We currently have almost 10,000 responses from fans and followers of Game of Thrones. 

Many thanks to the YouTuber @altshiftx for the shout-out to our survey in his latest Game of Thrones analysis video, ““Husband to Bears”: who is Tormund’s secret lover?”

A letter written by our Principal Investigator, Professor Martin Barker, was published online in The Guardian last night. It read: 

“Game of Thrones offers hope against Trump”

Rebecca Nicholson (Harry Potter and the Election of Horrors, G2, 14 March) tells an important story about the responses of Harry Potter fans to Trump’s election. She should certainly add to her account the case of the Harry Potter Alliance, the organisation of Rowling fans committed to acting out the values of non-discrimination and inclusiveness. But in just saying that each generation may have its effective “fictions”, she misses out the most important feature of this: that it is contemporary fantasy more than anything that is providing the means to this around the world.

“Winter Is Coming.” A slogan on anti-Erdogan posters in Turkey. A banner carried by women at anti-Trump demonstrations. A hand-written poster held up by desperate refugees held at the Greek border. The title of a book by former chess champion Gary Kasparov warning the West about Vladimir Putin.

This slogan from the book and TV series Game of Thrones is being used by many to voice fears, anger and resistance to cruelty and inhumanity in many places.  Even George R. R. Martin declares ‘Winter is Coming’ after Donald Trump’s victory. But elsewhere the slogan is also being used as a quick reference point for sales brochures, training sessions, and policy initiatives.  

What’s going on? How is this fiction series being taken up and used by so many different groups – far beyond its ‘fantasy’ world? A team of 40 researchers in 12 countries is recruiting responses to a specially designed survey in hopes of throwing light on the wide significance of this game-changing story world.

Go to www.questeros.org to see who we are.

Go to www.questeros.org to take part in the project.

Go to www.questeros.org because WINTER IS HERE!

We’ve had over 2,700 responses to our survey so far - don’t forget to have your say on Game of Thrones at questeros.org!  

Hi! 

Thank you very much for your question. We are so happy that you think the project is a good idea! 

We do intend to make all of the results from the Game of Thrones Research Project public. We are also expecting a lot of the work that the researchers develop from the survey to be published in the audience and reception studies journal, Participations, which is very fortunately open access.

I will be keeping this Tumblr updated over the coming months with information about the progress of the project, so if you are interested please keep an eye out for my updates.

philyg123 replied to your photo “We’ve just launched a major Game of Thrones Research Project to try to...”

I wrote some mean stuff

We’ve just launched a major Game of Thrones Research Project to try to gather the views of thousands of viewers of the HBO series on www.questeros.org.

We’re not funded by anyone else. And we’re not connected with HBO in any way – we are a group of university researchers with a big interest in fantasy films and TV.

What are your views on Game of Thrones? Is it simply the best megashow ever? Is it cruel and exploitative? Is it a fair reflection of the sorry state of our world? Or something else, altogether? We to know. We want to gather the full range of views on Game of Thrones.